Some experts believe that we could be just a few years away from discovering the elusive "Planet Nine" — or ruling out the existence of the hypothetical world for good.
But if we do find it, how long would it take for us to send a spacecraft to the far-flung world? And could humans ever make the trip?
If Planet Nine is ever detected, space agencies like
NASA will want to send a probe to visit the distant world. But first, they will have to plan and get approval for such a mission.
"This will take at least a decade or more,"
Andreas Hein, a space systems engineer at the University of Luxembourg, told Live Science in an email. This is mostly because missions have to go through a lengthy and rigorous government selection process, he added.
But this process could be sped up depending on how odd the world appears in initial readings,
Manasvi Lingam, a theoretical astrobiologist at the Florida Institute of Technology, told Live Science in an email. "If Planet 9 is anomalous in some respect, there could be more interest in expediting such a mission."
Once a probe is sent to Planet Nine, the next question is how long will it take to arrive?
In 2022, Hein, Lingam and part-time astronomer
Adam Hibberd attempted to answer this question in a theoretical paper that was posted to the pre-print database
arXiv. In this paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, the researchers estimated that it would likely take between 45 and 75 years for a spacecraft akin to NASA's Voyager probes to reach Planet Nine.
it might be possible to reach Planet Nine quicker if we could crack more advanced propulsion technologies, such as light sails — giant sails that catch sunlight or lasers to accelerate spacecraft, Hein and Lingam said.
In the 2022 study, the researchers suggested that a light sail could take as little as seven years to reach Planet Nine. However, it could take at least 20 years for light sails to become a reality, the team estimated.
As a result, if we found Planet Nine tomorrow, it would be better to send a current probe than to wait for alternative technologies to become available, Lingam said. "Laser sails can be launched later, if and when they become practical and cost-effective."
Some experts believe that the solar system's hypothetical ninth planet could be just a few years away from being discovered. If this is the case, how long would it take for humans to send probes to the elusive world?
www.livescience.com